Mexican fugitive drug lord 'El Chapo' Guzmán was almost captured because of his pet monkey

Though he has managed to avoid the Mexican government's nationwide manhunt for more than three
months, Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán still
applied for a permit needed to transport his daughters' monkey to
his hideout in northwest Mexico — an act that almost got the
fugitive drug lord captured.

Guzmán's efforts to retrieve Boots, his twin 4-year-old
daughters' pet monkey, tipped the government off to his
whereabouts, according to information about the
investigation shared with Carlos Loret de Mola,a columnist for the Mexican newspaper El Universal.

Boots, the monkey

Emma
Coronel.Screen
grab/Univision

To visit Guzmán more frequently, his daughters and their mother,
Guzmán's wife, Emma Coronel, a former beauty queen,
relocated to a home near Altiplano prison, where the Sinaloa
cartel boss was held after his February 2014 arrest.

Ahead of Guzmán's bold escape from prison on July 11, the drug
kingpin's family moved to a new compound in Durango state in
northwest Mexico, according to Loret.

It was after their reunion that the girls asked their father to
get Boots, named after the monkey character on the children's show "Dora
the Explorer," which had been left behind when the family moved,
Loret reported.

And so, the world's most notorious drug lord assigned his
closest associates to bring the animal back by plane. To get
the monkey on an aircraft, Guzmán's men were required to apply
for a permit, a bureaucratic hurdle with which, for some reason,
they complied.

Christopher Woody/Google Maps/Business
Insider

But, according to reports seen by Loret, the henchmen were unable
to get the proper permits, "so they had no choice but to
transport it by highway," Loret wrote.

Mexican investigators, alerted by the permit application and on
the lookout for the monkey, soon caught up with Guzmán's men and
their cargo.

According to sources Loret spoke with, "investigators
discovered Boots in Sinaloa, on board a red luxury Mustang. They
knew that the pet would be able to take them to their objective."

The Mustang in question belonged to Guzmán's brother-in-law,
Edgar Coronel Aispuro, who is believed to have helped Guzmán
escape from Altiplano prison.

Zeroing in on El Chapo

Mexican
Attorney General Arely Gomez with a picture of Guzmán during a
news conference at the Secretaria de Gobernacion in Mexico City
on July 13.Getty
Images

Intercepted cellphone signals, analysis of the pilot's flights, and the information about
Boots led investigators to Mexico's Golden Triangle, a
mountainous region where the Chihuahua, Durango, and Sinaloa
states converge that is a high-drug-production area and
the Sinaloa cartel's home base.

Mexico's Golden
Triangle.Google Maps/Amanda
Macias/Business Insider

For Guzmán, regarded as the world's most wanted drug lord, the
manhunt appears to have gotten uncomfortably close.

In recent days, Mexican marines have conducted raids and searched
homes in the western portion of the Golden Triangle.

A burned truck
pictured at the Comedero Colorado ranch, in the municipality of
Tamazula, Durango State, on October 18.Getty Images

According to displaced villagers, bullet holes on roofs and
charred cars were left in the wake of the failed military operationto catch the
fugitive drug baron, AFP reported.

Authorities denied accusations by locals, however, that
the marines shot at the civilian population, with the navy saying
on October 18 that it had "strictly" respected human
rights.

A truck damaged by gunfire
pictured at the El Aguila ranch, in the municipality of Tamazula,
Durango State, on October 18.AFP

Guzmán was reportedly seen in the area several times in early
October.

Mexican marines identified him on October 6 in Durango state,
traveling on a motorcycle and in a Ferrari.

Three days later, authorities spotted him in Cosala, in Sinaloa state,
walking with a young girl.

AFP

They were hesitant to act because of the girl's presence,
but they later spotted him without her and gave chase. Some
accounts report that Guzmán's men fired on Mexican marines,
temporarily halting their operation.

According to Mexican officials, during his escape, Guzmán, who is
believed to be about 60 years old, fell down a small cliff,
injuring his face and breaking his leg.

Guzmán's bodyguards came to his aid, helping him slip away into the heavy forest region.
Despite cordoning off the area, Mexican security forces were
unable to apprehend the Sinaloa chief, and he
remains at large.

The
raid on what was believed to be Guzmán's location took place in
Cosalá, south of his hometown of Badiraguato, in Sinaloa
state.Christopher Woody/Google
Maps/Business Insider

According to TeleSur, authorities have searched several homes in
recent days, including four homes some distance away in
the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacán, which may
indicate that the Mexican government has lost the trail of the
fugitive drug lord.

With a broken leg, the chances Mexican authorities will track him
down "have boosted tremendously," a Mexican official told CNN.

"The fact that he's injured is one factor he didn't count on,"
Carl Pike, a former DEA special agent, said to CNN. "Now he needs help," Pike added.

Guzmán still has the extensive resources of the Sinaloa
organization to aid him, and many of the people of Sinaloa are
cheering his escape (a sentiment that
may spread if Mexican security forces
continue their heavy-handed approach).

Whatever assets Guzmán may have on his
side, his new vulnerability has no doubt forced him to
contemplate the fate that some think awaits him.

The Sinaloa boss knows that "if they get him, he will either die
in the operation or be immediately extradited to the US,"
Guillermo Valdés, a former Mexican intelligence official,
told the Financial Times.

That assessment has been echoed by a former high-profile figure
in the drug underworld.

Guzmán "knows he has to be killed, because if they capture him
alive, they will extradite him to the US," said "Popeye" Vasquez, the top assassin for
Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar in the 1990s.

"And for a recalcitrant Mexican like El Chapo, as it was for
Pablo Escobar … to be in a US jail is a very hard
thing," Vasquez added. "That's why El Chapo will get
himself killed."